Nobody in the West has done more to clear up the mystery of China than
John K. Fairbank, professor of Chinese history at Harvard. His latest
book, a collection of 17 essays written between 1946 and 1974,
continues a lifetime of combat against what he calls "the original sin
of ignorance" about East Asia. It is a sin, Fairbank feels, that can be
resisted only with the help of a great deal more historical knowledge
than...